About every 4-6 weeks a group of my <<cough, cough>> friends get together,
sans S.O.s, and go for dinner. This group is pretty notorious in St. Louis
for our long drunken dinners, outrageous behavior and huge tips. Some
people have actually given our group a name which I won't really go into.
Marcus is a very close friend, we talk on the phone daily and usually have
lunch once or twice a month. He set the dinner up. When the gang got here
I found out Marcus had planned to go to the Casino Queen for dinner and
gambling... gag. I'm the designated driver on all excursions since I no
loner drink.
Off we went. We arrived at the Casino and proceeded to the Courtyard (I
don't know what the rest of it was called) restaurant. I don't like buffets
and this was a buffet. I was terse and unhappy Marcus picked this place.
But there is a God, there are no cocktails served in the restaurant so
Marcus got his comeuppance.
The decor was okay and fit the theme of the restaurant and looked like a
theme chain restaurant. We were seated in the smoking section and told to
help ourselves to the buffet. I scanned the buffet and it looked pretty
dismal. Everything looked canned. On the bright side, no children were
present. I grabbed a salad and on the way back to the table spied The
Rotisserie. Ahhh... they did stir fry to order and had eye of round. There
was no one lined up at the Rotisserie like they were in the buffet line to
get at the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and mac n' cheese. Later I had a
stir fry of veggies, a couple of slices of the beef (which was surprisingly
good) and a slice of ham. The desserts were okay looking and for dessert I
had a sugar free blackberry pie which was pretty good.
The best part of the experience was people watching. Our table was up on a
platform with a wall of lattice separating us from the non-smoking section.
Marcus immediately began a war with the non-smoking table next next to us,
on the other side of the lattice. This lady with a high pitched, very
obnoxious voice would not put her cell phone down. Soooo... Marcus blew his
smoke directly at her through the lattice. Gawd, every time her phone
rang, he lit up. He had her coughing at one point but by Gawd she kept
yapping on the phone and he kept smoking.
At the far end was a rather large party of people. Interesting crowd and
without knowing a thing about them, I assumed they were the die hard
gambling crowd. They all looked the same, sweatshirts, sneakers, jeans and
all had pinched faces with huge dark circles under the eyes.
At the other end was a group our size with 6 people. The one lady was the
obvious matriarch. She was large, extremely large. I'm talking really,
really round. She had the most beautiful grey hair I've ever seen all done
up in a bun. She had on a sequined floor length gown and black pumps. Her
blue eyes twinkled and I could just tell she was fun to be around. Anyway,
she got up and walked toward our table, presumably on her way to the ladies
room. The first thing that came to mind was a giant strobe light gliding
down the walkway. She bumped our table and proceeded to apologize. Marcus
(ever the [censored]), had to remark on how 'lovely' her gown was.
To shorten it, she laughed, said he was full of [censored]. We all laughed. We
gabbed with her for a short time. It was her 60th birthday and her grandson
wanted to take her for dinner and the Casino was all he could afford. She
was out to have a good time. I really, really like her and we exchanged
cell numbers. Hopefully I will have made a new friend.
Michael <- lost his alloted $50 on the quarter slots
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